Read The Canongate Burns Online
Authors: Robert Burns
The Canongate Burns (19 page)
190
A vast, unbottom'd, boundless
Pit
,
       Fill'd fou o'
lowan brunstane
,
full, flaming brimstone
Whase ragin flame, an' scorchin heat,
whose
       Wad melt the hardest whun-stane!
would, whinstone
The
half-asleep
start up wi' fear,
195
       An' think they hear it roaran;
roaring
When presently it does appear,
       'Twas but some neebor
snoran
neighbour, snoring
              Asleep that day.
'Twad be owre lang a tale to tell,
over long
200
       How monie stories past;
many
An' how they crouded to the yill,
crowded, ale
       When they were a' dismist;
How drink gaed round, in cogs an' caups,
went, wooden jugs, cups
       Amang the furms an' benches;
among, a row of seats
205
An'
cheese
an'
bread
, frae women's laps,
from
       Was dealt about in lunches,
              An' dawds that day.
large pieces
In comes a gausie, gash
Guidwife
,
jolly, smart, good-
       An' sits down by the fire,
210
Syne draws her
kebbuck
an' her knife;
then, cheese
       The lasses they are shyer:
The auld
Guidmen
, about the
grace
,
old, good-
       Frae side to side they bother;
from
Till some ane by his bonnet lays,
one, cap
215
       An' gies them't, like a
tether
,
gives, rope
              Fu' lang that day.
long
Waesucks! for him that gets nae lass,
Alas!, no
       Or lasses that hae naething!
have nothing
Sma' need has he to say a grace,
220
       Or melvie his braw claithing!
dirty with meal, fine clothes
O
Wives
, be mindfu', ance yoursel,
once
       How bonie lads ye wanted;
handsome
An' dinna for a
kebbuck-heel
do not, hard cheeese rind
       Let lasses be affronted
225
              On sic a day!
such
Now
Clinkumbell
,
3
wi' rattlan tow,
noisy pull
       Begins to jow an' croon;
swing, toll
Some swagger hame the best they dow,
home, can
       Some wait the afternoon.
230
At slaps the billies halt a blink,
a dyke gap, young lads
       Till lasses strip their shoon:
take off, shoes
Wi'
faith
an'
hope
, an'
love
an'
drink
,
       They're a' in famous tune
              For crack that day.
talk
235
How monie hearts this day converts
many
       O' Sinners and o' Lasses!
Their hearts o' stane, gin night, are gane
stone, come, gone
       As saft as onie flesh is:
soft, any
There's some are fou o'
love divine
;
full
240
       There's some are fou o'
brandy
;
full
An' monie jobs that day begin,
many
       May end in
Houghmagandie
sexual intercourse
              Some ither day.
other
This celebration of the sensual capacity of the Scottish people to resist the worst rhetorical excesses of their clerical masters was written in 1785 and revised in early 1786 for the Kilmarnock edition. As McGuirk notes it is a direct descendent of Fergusson's
Leith
Races
which itself descends from Milton's
L'Allegro
and the nine-line Scottish medieval âbrawl' poem:
I dwall amang the caller springs
    That weet the Land o' Cakes,
And aften tune my canty strings
    At bridals and late-wakes.
They ca' me Mirth; I ne'er was kend
    To grumble or look sour,
But blyth was be to lift a lend,
    Gif ye was sey my pow'r
              An' pith this day.
Fergusson's poem is, of course, the celebration of a purely secular occasion; Burns is writing a more complex religious satire. Crawford (
Burns,
A Study of the Poems and Songs
, p. 69) places the occasional poem accurately in the long Covenanter-originated Scottish tradition of open-air preaching. This specific event held in Mauchline in 1785 gathered together an audience of 2000 (four times the Mauchline population) of whom 1200 were communicants. Gilbert recorded that his brother was witness to this and had personal knowledge of the preachers he so incisively satirises.
Burns takes his epigraph from
Hypocrisy A-La-Mode
, a play written in 1704 by Tom Brown. That gale of liberal, satirical, enlightened laughter that runs through eighteenth-century English literature, especially Henry Fielding, as it attempts to sweep away institutionalised religious hypocrisy also blows powerfully through Burns's writings. He is the major Scottish variant on this anti-clerical Enlightenment project. His Scotland, however, was a darker, more theocratically-controlled state than almost anywhere else in Europe. In his early writing, as here, he senses victory over the savage forces of religious repression. Later, his mood was to darken as he despaired of the unbreakable grip Calvin's damnation had on the Scottish psyche and, hence, body politic.
This early poem has, however, the comic optimism of Fielding's
Tom Jones
rather than the demonic repression of Blake's
The Songs
of Experience
. The roaring flames of hell here (ll. 190â8) are merely the snores of a fellow pew-member. Unlike Macbeth, who tragically meets three witches on the moor, our comic narrator meets only two, Superstition and Hypocrisy, but their gorgeous sister Fun is an immediately victorious Cinderella and her spirit drives the whole poem. If not promiscuous, Fun is a decidedly erotic young lady as are the young women running barefoot, to save their shoes, towards the thronging excitement and carrying gifts which might be for the satisfaction of appetites other than those of the stomach. Indeed, the whole poem is infused with the way in which the people convert the âOccasion', so clerically defined, into an opportunity for their multiple, but especially sexual, appetites:
O happy is that man an' blest!
    Nae wonder that it pride him!
Whase ain dear lass, that he likes best,
    Comes clinkan down beside him!
This echo of
Psalm 46
also alerts us to the fact that the rhetorical world of these preachers breeds sexual ills. For example, in 1.116, âcantharidian plaisters' were poultices made from the aphrodisiac Spanish fly.
Burns's assault on the various masters of pulpit oratory names names in a way that ensured there would be a severe backlash against him. âSawney' Moodie, with his old-time, âAuld-Licht' undiluted gospel of damnation, is first on stage (ll. 100â17). Moodie (1728â99) was minister of Riccarton near Kilmarnock. He is followed by the âNew Licht' George Smith (d. 1823), minister of Galston. McGuirk subtly argues that while Burns is criticising Smith's rhetorical banality, he is more intent on satirising the congregation whose appetite for hell-fire preaching excludes the life of actual good-works. Smith's position is then assaulted by William Peebles of Newton-upon-Ayr (1753â1826) who, further inflaming the malign passions of the congregation, drives Common Sense, a central value of the new, more liberal Christianity, from the field. He is succeeded by Alexander Miller (d. 1804) whose professional self-seeking rebounded against him when the parishioners of Kilmaurs subsequently attempted to stop him getting that charge due, he claimed, to the effects of ll. 145â54. The worst is saved to the last. âBlack' John Russel (c. 1740â1817) was then minister at Kilmarnock. Subsequently minister at Cromarty, Hugh Miller (
My Schools and
Schoolmasters
) testified to his capacity to terrify, indeed, traumatise his congregation.
Along with such manifestations of theocratic control Burns adds some more overt political commentary. âRacer Jess' is Janet Gibson (d. 1813), who is the daughter of Poosie Nansie, mine hostess of
Love
and Liberty
, is with her like-inclined companions strategically placed beside the laird's tent. In the same stanza, the â
Wabster
lads/ Blackguarding from Kilmarnock' probably belong to the weaving community which was deeply and dissidently radical.
The poem moves from a celebration of alcohol (ll. 163â71) and the triumph of this earthy spirit over the one of false sanctimony to a triumphant assertion, implicit throughout the poem, of spontaneous eroticism. The experienced women may already be dealing out more than bread and cheese but, assignations made, loss of virginity happily looms at the poem's end. As Edwin Muir wrote, regarding the âsordid and general tyranny' of the kirk session: âit is only necessary to say that the time-honoured Scottish tradition of fornication triumphantly survived all its terrors' (
John Knox
, 1930, pp. 306â7).
First printed in the Kilmarnock edition, 1786.
O Prince! O Chief of many thronèd pow'rs!
That led th' embattl'd seraphim to war â
Milton.
O Thou! whatever title suit thee â
Auld Hornie, Satan, Nick, or Clootie â
old, cloven-hoofed
Wha in yon cavern grim an' sootie,
who, filled with soot
                 Clos'd under hatches,
5
Spairges about the brunstane cootie,
splashes, brimstone dish
                 To scaud poor wretches!
scald
Hear me,
auld Hangie
, for a wee,
old hangman, while
An' let poor
damnèd bodies
be;
I'm sure sma' pleasure it can gie,
give
10
                 Ev'n to a
deil
,
devil
To skelp an' scaud poor dogs like me
hit/slap, scald
                 An' hear us squeel!
Great is thy pow'r an' great thy fame;
Far kend, an' noted is thy name;
known
15
An' tho' yon
lowan heugh's
thy hame,
moaning, hollow, home
                 Thou travels far;
An' faith! thou's neither lag, nor lame,
backward
                 Nor blate nor scaur.
bashful, afraid
Whyles, ranging like a roarin lion,
sometimes
20
For prey, a' holes an' corners tryin;
Whyles, on the strong-wing'd Tempest flyin,
                 Tirlan the
Kirks
;
stripping â attacking
Whyles, in the human bosom pryin,
                 Unseen thou lurks.
25
I've heard my rev'rend
Graunie
say,
grannie
In lanely glens ye like to stray;
lonely
Or, where auld ruin'd castles grey
old
                 Nod to the moon,
Ye fright the nightly wand'rer's way
30
                 Wi' eldritch croon.
unearthly eerie moan
When twilight did my
Graunie
summon,
grannie
To say her pray'rs, douce, honest woman!
sober/prudent
Aft yont the dyke she's heard you bumman,
away beyond
                 Wi' eerie drone;
35
Or, rustlin, thro' the boortries coman,
alder trees coming
                 Wi' heavy groan.
Ae dreary, windy, winter night,
one
The stars shot down wi' sklentan light,
slanting
Wi' you mysel, I gat a fright:
got
40
                 Ayont the lough,
beyond, loch
Ye, like a
rash-buss
, stood in sight,
bunch of rushes
                 Wi' waving sugh:
moan
The cudgel in my nieve did shake,
fist
Each bristl'd hair stood like a stake;
45
When wi' an eldritch, stoor
quaick, quaick
,
unearthly harsh, duck quack
                 Amang the springs,
among
Awa ye squatter'd like a
drake
,
away, a noisy take-off
                 On whistling wings.
Let
Warlocks
grim, an' wither'd
Hags
,
50
Tell how wi' you, on ragweed nags,
ragwort
They skim the muirs an' dizzy crags,
moors, high peaks
                 Wi' wicked speed;
And in kirk-yards renew their leagues,
                 Owre howket dead.
over those raised from the grave
55
Thence, countra wives, wi' toil an' pain,
country
May plunge an' plunge the
kirn
in vain;
churn
For Och! the yellow treasure's taen
taken
                 By witching skill;
An' dawtit, twal-pint
Hawkie's
gaen
petted, 12-pint cow has gone
60
                 As yell's the Bill.
dry, bull
Thence, mystic knots mak great abuse
On
Young-Guidmen
, fond, keen an' croose;
husbands, over confident
When the best
warklum
i' the house,
work-tool, penis
                 By cantraip wit,
magic/evil
65
Is instant made no worth a louse,
                 Just at the bit.
stopped before ejaculation
When thowes dissolve the snawy hoord,
thawes, snowy hoard
An' float the jinglin icy boord,
water's surface
Then,
Water-kelpies
haunt the foord,
imaginary water-spirits, ford
70
                 By your direction,
An' nighted Trav'llers are allur'd
                 To their destruction.Â
An' aft your moss-traversing
Spunkies
often, bog-, demons
Decoy the wight that late an' drunk is:
fellow
75
The bleezan, curst, mischievous monkies
                 Delude his eyes,
Till in some miry slough he sunk is,
dirty hole
                 Ne'er mair to rise.
more
When MASONS' mystic
word
an'
grip
80 In storms an' tempests raise you up,
Some cock or cat your rage maun stop,
shall
                 Or, strange to tell!
The
youngest Brother
ye wad whip
would
                 Aff straught to
Hell
.
off straight
85
Lang syne in
Eden's
bonie yard,
long ago
When youthfu' lovers first were pair'd,
An' all the Soul of Love they shar'd,
                 The raptur'd hour,
Sweet on the fragrant flow'ry swaird,
grassy edge
90
                 In shady bow'r:
Then you, ye auld, snick-drawing dog!
old, sly door opener
Ye cam to Paradise incog,
came, disguised
An' play'd on man a cursed brogue
trick
                 (Black be your fa'!),
fall
95
An' gied the infant warld a shog,
gave, world, shake
                 'Maist ruin'd a'. almost
D'ye mind that day when in a bizz
flurry/bustle
Wi' reeket duds, an' reestet gizz,
smoky clothes, scorched wig
Ye did present your smoutie phiz
smutty face
100
                 'Mang better folk;
An' sklented on the
man of Uzz
squinted at Job
                 Your spitefu' joke?
An' how ye gat him i' your thrall,
got, spell
An' brak him out o' house an' hal',
broke
105
While scabs an' blotches did him gall,
                 Wi' bitter claw;
An' lows'd his ill-tongu'd wicked
Scawl
â
slackened, scolding wife
                 Was warst ava?
worst of all
But a' your doings to rehearse,
110
Your wily snares an' fechtin fierce,
fighting
Sin' that day MICHAEL did you pierce
                 Down to this time,
Wad ding a
Lallan
tongue, or
Erse
,
would, beat, Lowland Scots, Irish
                 In Prose or Rhyme.
115
An' now, auld
Cloots
, I ken ye're thinkan,
old, know
A certain Bardie's rantin, drinkin,
Some luckless hour will send him linkan,
hurrying
                 To your black pit;
Hell
But, faith! he'll turn a corner jinkin,
dodging
120
                 An' cheat you yet.
But fare-you-weel, auld
Nickie-ben
!
old
O wad ye tak a thought an' men'!
would, mend
Ye aiblins might â I dinna ken â
perhaps, do not know
                 Still hae a
stake
:
have
125
I'm wae to think upo' yon den,
sad
                 Ev'n for your sake.Â
Burns mentions to John Richmond on 17th February 1786 that he had recently completed this poem. It is normally dated to the winter of 1785â6. A poem of this length Burns might have turned out quickly, so it is probably one of the fruits of his intense writing campaign leading to publication of the Kilmarnock edition.
This poem is now generally accepted as a relatively light-weight piece of near comic knockabout as Burns mocks the allegedly fast-fading figure of the Devil from his hitherto central role in Scottish theology and folk-lore. In his essay âRobert Burns, Master of Scottish Poetry' (
Uncollected Scottish Criticism
, ed. Noble (London), pp. 199â200), Edwin Muir analyses this poem as the centre-piece of his persuasive argument that during the eighteenth century enlightened, improving, secularising Scotland had lost both its theological passion and its sense of supernatural mystery integral to its older poetry:
⦠two centuries of religious terrors had faded under the touch of reason and enlightenment, and the mysterious problems of election and damnation, had turned into amusing doggerel:
O Thou wha in the Heavens dost dwell,
Wha, as it pleases best thysel';
Sends ane to heaven and ten to hell,
         A' for thy glory,
And no for any guid or ill
         They've done afore thee!
Calvinism, once feared as a power or hated as a superstition, became absurd under the attack of common reason. The growing powers of the Enlightenment encouraged the change in the universities, the churches, in popular debate, and among the people. The ideas of liberty and equality did their part; Scotland became a place where a man was a man for a' that; the new humanistic attitude to religion led people to believe that âThe hert's aye the pairt aye that mak's us richt or wrang.' The story of the Fall became a simple story of human misfortune to two
young people whose intentions had been so good, âLang syne in Eden's bonnie yard'.
Then you, ye auld sneck-drawing dog!
Ye cam to Paradise incog.
And played on a man a curse brogue
         (Black be your fa!)
An' gled the infant world a shog
         Maist ruined a'.
Muir further thinks that this new enlightened poetry is, with âsomething of Voltaire's contes and Bernard Shaw's plays', witty but lightweight, even, relative to the old poetry, superficial. There are two related fundamental miscomprehensions in Muir's account. First, the power of folklore is present in the poem though not, say, as we find its direct intrusion as in the great Scottish Ballad tradition, so beloved by Muir, but in Burns's ambivalent treatment of it. As he wrote to Dr Moore:
I sometimes keep a sharp look-out in suspicious places; and though nobody can be more sceptical in these matters than I, yet it often takes an effort of Philosophy to shake of these idle terrors (Letter 125).
What we see in this particular poem from ll. 5â84 is no simple send-up of foolishly atavistic folk-superstition. Not only is Burns intent on anthropologically recording, as in
Halloween
, the customs and beliefs of his rural community but, as in
Tam o'Shanter
, conveying the still âeerie' potency of that world. (See Edward J. Cowan, âBurns and Superstition',
Love and Liberty
, pp. 229â37.) He is also, as usual, making salacious jokes inspired by the bottomless well of sexual metaphor supplied to him by folk-tradition. Hugh Blair wanted ll. 61â6 deleted as âindecent' because they depend on the identification of lume/loom with the penis. (See
BC
, 1932, p. 95.)
Muir, however, is absolutely wrong in thinking that it is the diminished power of Calvinism on the Scottish psyche that leads to the poem's, to him, lightweight tone. This is a particularly weird error in Muir, who more than any other figure in a profoundly anti-Calvinist, Scottish Renaissance group believed that Knox (of whom he actually wrote a biography) had not lost his sadistic, disintegrating grip on the Scottish soul. Further, that Scottish reintegration meant a return to catholic, European humanism.
